


a quiet understanding

by yaegerists



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Bulimia, Eating Disorders, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Nightmares, Sharing a Bed, eren is going through it, levi and eren are suffering, not particularly romance but can be read that way if you like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:40:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29861688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yaegerists/pseuds/yaegerists
Summary: Unfortunately for them both, Levi understood Eren now.Or maybe it wasn’t that.Maybe it was that Eren had been dragged against his will to a place where he and Levi were more similar than Levi would ever want to be to one of his soldiers.Levi thought that was actually more hellish.
Relationships: Levi Ackerman & Eren Yeager, Levi Ackerman/Eren Yeager
Comments: 2
Kudos: 85





	a quiet understanding

**Author's Note:**

> please check the tags, there are a lot of triggers in here and i don't want anyone being set off without thinking!
> 
> this is also my first time writing snk so please be kind :)

Levi wasn’t sure when exactly he’d started to understand Eren.

Maybe it was in strategy meetings that Erwin had dragged him to. Where they’d spoken in Eren in terms of his usefulness to the crown rather than as a person, because acknowledging his personhood would mean also understanding that he had his own thoughts and feelings on what he was going to be ordered to do. And that with that, came the horrifying realisation, that Eren may not actually agree. When they’d use the ‘Humanity’s Last Hope’ moniker to refer to him instead of his name, pretending it’s reverence rather than dehumanisation, sometimes even to his face to try and make him shoulder the burden that his reputation had given him.

_ “ - but it’ll be dangerous, we could lose a hundred men in the blink of an eye - ” _

_ “Humanity’s Strongest can do it.” _

_ “I’m not sure he’ll be willing to -” _

_ “He’s a just a rat from the underground in reality, force him to do it, it’s his place -” _

Maybe it was when he saw Eren after he’d realised just how many people died in war. What it was like to be face to face to death, to feel blood splatter against your face as your comrade was crushed to death between titan fingers, fragments of their bones scratching your cheeks as they flew past you, a sick metallic taste on your tongue as parts of them shot into your face. When Eren had gone quiet and dead eyed following yet another death, yet another life extinguished, and people had just told him to move on, to not think about it because everyone knew what they were getting into when they joined the scouts, didn’t they?

_ Acid washed over Levi’s tongue as he gagged around his fingers, teeth biting into his knuckles against his will. He needed to get it out, get the taste of Isabel and Furlan’s blood out, make sure there was no remnant of them left inside him. It didn’t matter that his stomach and throat were aching painfully, that he’d been at this two hours now and any food that had been inside him was long since gone, that this was stupid and insane and he couldn’t catch his breath and he was shaking with the effort and frustration and panic each time his breath caught. _

_ He took his fingers out of his throat, gave himself a moment of reprieve to catch his breath. His body clearly didn’t want reprieve though, and his abdomen cramped painfully and made him retch again, over and over, like it too knew what had happened just hours earlier and was rejecting it, mocking him for not working hard enough to do so in the first place… _

Maybe it was when he saw bags settle under Eren’s green eyes, saw them become a consistent fixture against his olive skin, less purple than against Levi’s lily white but still plain for all to see. People hovered around Eren, like they were waiting for something to snap, or blow, or just a spectacle that they could watch. Mikasa was eager to not leave his side, but Eren would simply shrug her off, leave alone to his barracks for sleep. He’d snapped at her when she’d tried following though, and the bags under his eyes were no less stark the next morning.

_ “Levi,” said Erwin, looking at him in such a way that Levi knew there was no getting out of this conversation. He’d gone to the lengths of waiting until everyone else was gone to start it, at least. _

_ “You’re having nightmares,” said Erwin, cutting him off before he could speak back to add, “you’ve been crying out at night.” _

_ Well fuck, his body was back to betraying him then. _

_ Levi stayed silent, looking dead into Erwin’s eyes. There was nothing wrong with having nightmares, right? They dealt with horrific shit daily.  _

_ That didn’t mean Erwin had to bring it up. _

_ “Have you considered seeing someone from medical?” asked Erwin, and Levi could tell that he was trying, even though the ridiculousness of what he said made it sound like he wasn’t. “You’re not sleeping. You know we need you at your best, Levi.” _

Unfortunately for them both, Levi understood Eren now. 

Or maybe it wasn’t that. 

Maybe it was that Eren had been dragged against his will to a place where he and Levi were more similar than Levi would ever want to be to one of his soldiers.

Levi thought that was actually more hellish.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Unfortunately, being similar means that Levi doesn’t mention it. He wouldn’t want someone to bring up his own self destructive ways of dealing with the hell they’re put through on a daily basis, so he doesn’t do that to Eren.

He ignores the way that Eren becomes more withdrawn, the way he seems to resist Mikasa’s hovering more.

He ignores the way he has to tighten the straps of his ODM gear a little more, the way the jacket over his shoulders sits slightly baggier, the way that Armin seems to hover around him at mealtimes as well rather than it just being one of Mikasa’s idiosyncrasies, the way the bags under his eyes darken to purple like bruises. 

Who is he to take away Eren’s coping mechanisms when he’s still using them himself?

Who is he to challenge any of this? Challenging Eren on any of this would make his own behaviours challengeable, unacceptable, the kind of thing he’d have to stop. He’s got them to a manageable level - his weight is stable, his sleep is enough to function now (and he knows that Erwin and Hange give firm orders that if he sleeps in on a day off, he’s to be left alone to do so), he’s able to ignore that he’s a weapon, a tool for the crown, because his squad treat him like a human now, aren’t afraid to approach him or speak to him, mostly because they’ve survived together long enough to see him injured or tired or any of the other shit parts of being human and have realised that Humanity’s Strongest is also simply Levi. 

  
Now it all balances out.

  
But some days those things are still the crutch he needs to get through, and he can’t have them taken away from him. So he goes on ignoring the elephant in the room. There’s more senior people to step in anyway, like Erwin and Hange, Eren falls under them too after all.

  
  
  


* * *

Until it’s unignorable.

They’re on a training exercise, trying to get some new recruits bedded into the scouts. Hange has asked him and his squad to follow behind, to be there in case of emergency, as well as getting in more ODM practice time to keep them all sharp.

Part of Levi is cynical - if he’s got to follow behind on a simple training exercise, isn’t it likely they’re just cannon fodder, more likely to die than survive a single month on the battlefield? 

Another part of him knows that if he goes down that train of thought, he’ll be having nightmares for a week. So he backs away from it, focusing on staying far enough behind for the recruits to know they can’t rely on him, but just close enough that he’s there if something goes disastrously wrong. 

Something does go disastrously wrong, but not in the way he expects.

He hears a scream up ahead, and immediately knows it’s Mikasa. He’s heard Mikasa scream plenty - never for herself, always over Eren - and he surges forward, speeds up until he finds Eren dangling from the wires holding him against a tree, and Mikasa trying to pry the metal out on the wood to release him. She’s acting on instinct alone, not really thinking, and Levi can see that she’s frantic, trying to pull the anchor out by hand.

Levi latches onto the tree himself, and puts Eren over his shoulder before looking up at her. “Move your hands away Mikasa,” he orders, and he can see that strange mix of panic and anger that he only ever saw before in one other person's eyes (and maybe his mother, if he thinks about it, but again - that’s a road he avoids going down at all costs), but she does as he says, and Levi can then successfully press on Eren’s ODM gear to release him.

Levi sags slightly where he’s latched onto the tree now Eren’s weight is on him completely, but he also notices that Eren’s a lighter weight than it probably should be. He drops down carefully, laying Eren on the ground, and Mikasa is hovering over him, watching him carefully as he checks Eren over.

“I think he’s exhausted himself,” sighs Levi, when he feels Eren’s pulse fluttering under his fingers at his neck without issue, and sees that Eren’s able to rouse slightly if given a good shake. “Go on and continue your training. I’ll get him back to base and to medical.”

“I should -” starts Mikasa, but Levi cuts her off quickly, orders her back to training, and he can tell she’s deeply unhappy about leaving Eren out of her line of sight, but he simply orders her again and she goes.

Levi puts Eren on his back this time, straps their torsos together to make Eren’s taller body easier to balance in ODM gear, and sets off back to base. Eren’s eyelids flutter a few times against the back of his neck, and there’s an occasional mumble, but Levi gets him back to base without incident, and straight to medical.

* * *

  
  
  


“Captain Levi,” says the head medic, calling him aside once Eren’s been thoroughly examined. “Are you sure this man is suitable to be in Special Operations?”

Levi wrinkles his nose at the thought of anyone telling him who should be in  _ his _ squad, but he knows better than to start shit in the medical bay. “Why do you ask?”

“He’s,” starts the medic, eyes flitting back over to where Eren is laid in bed, white sheets blending in with his skin far better than they should with how naturally olive Eren is, “he’s underweight, and clearly exhausted. Additionally there’s signs of self harm, I won’t go into detail, but there’s injuries that look self inflicted. I’m concerned whether he’s mentally sound enough -”

Levi cuts that off quickly. “He’s an excellent soldier,” he counters, and he knows its true. Maybe a little more true than this medic will ever know - Eren’s titan isn’t public knowledge, after all - but it’s true. “What does he need?”

“Well,” sighed the medic, and she folds her arms over her chest. “I’d recommend a few weeks off duty. Proper refeeding. St Johns Wort may be of benefit, but we’ll have to see how he goes with that,” she says, and Levi can tell she’s hesitant, that she’s heard stories about him being difficult (he’s a difficult patient, for sure, but he doesn’t think he’s ever kicked off about one of his squad needing time off - he’s not paid enough to deal with that anyway, that falls to the commander to provide him replacements), like she’s expecting the worst.

“Okay,” says Levi simply, and he can see her trying to process that. “Put it in writing for me to give to the commander.”

“I-,” she starts, looking flustered at the lack of argument from him. She nods though, before scurrying off, and Levi rolls his eyes before going to sit next to Eren’s bed. It’s the least he can do to sit with him (and he knows Mikasa would lose her shit were Eren left unattended in a vulnerable state like this).

Eren’s eyelids flutter again, and he moves in his sleep before crying out, and shooting to sit up. He’s awake, and panting, and Levi can see his hands are shaking where they grip the blankets over his legs as he looks around the room wildly to try and figure out where he is.

“You’ve landed yourself in the medical bay,” says Levi, and Eren whips his head around to look at him. His eyes are duller than Levi ever remembers them being, and this close up the bags are dark enough to look like bruises. He looks too thin in the medical gown he’s been put in (Levi hadn’t bothered going to the barracks to get anything else, Mikasa would only be unhappy with his choice anyway), and his skin is dry, and his knuckles have the same redness to them that Levi’s get after a particularly bad spell.

All in all, Eren looks like  _ shit _ .

“What happened?” asks Eren hesitantly, and Levi can tell that he’s panicking at the lack of Mikasa and Armin, and fearing the worst. Understandable in their line of work, really.

“You passed out during a training exercise,” explains Levi carefully, and he can see Eren exhale. “They’re still out there and were fine when I brought you back, you’ve been out around an hour.”

“Oh,” says Eren, his grip on the blankets around him slackening. “I don’t -”

“You do,” says Levi, looking him dead in the eye, because even if he’s not going to force Eren to do anything other than comply with the medic’s orders, he’s not going to play pretend. “You know. And I’m not going to pry, but you’re going to do that the medics say. Understood?”

It feels less hypocritical when it’s coming from the medics.

Hange reads the letter from the medics with a sigh, but agrees without hesitation. Everyone’s seen Eren’s decline, and they’re in a state of rebuilding right now and can spare him from the frontline, give him time to try and get back on track.

  
  
  


* * *

It’s around two weeks later when things start to get bad for Levi again.

It’s the anniversary of Isabel and Furlan’s deaths, and to boot, two new recruits are killed on a mission to gather salt from the sea.

  
Their deaths are a senseless accident, they’re dragged out to sea when the sea comes too high up the beach, and accomplish nothing other than creating two newly devastated families that Levi has to write letters of condolences to.

  
When deaths were caused by titans, somehow it was easier to accept. They were facing an enemy, protecting people, there was a cause to die for.

These two have their deaths mean little more than a saltier dish for the wealthy people in Wall Sina.

He cleans until his bones ache in secret, until he feels light headed from bleach fumes as he scrubs, then he takes the hottest showers he can late at night so he can be alone, until his skin aches and turns red and threatens to blister.

He sits in the shower afterwards, wishing that he could pour bleach onto his skin, wonders if that would wash some of the guilt off him, but he knows that’s crazy and would mean he could no longer be left alone to use his own stupid methods of coping, so he doesn’t. Instead he just looks over how red his skin has gone and cools down.

  
That’s what he’s doing when he hears someone rushing into the showers, and turning one of the others straight up to full, and he hears retching.

Deep, painful retching, and the sound of fingers being plunged into a person’s throat.

  
“Fuck,” comes Eren’s voice, sounding strained and panicked, and then the retching starts again, and this is too much for Levi to leave alone then, because Eren clearly isn’t doing what the medics have told him despite being too unwell for his role right now.

Levi wraps a towel around his hips before going over, and Eren’s bent double, gagging himself over the plughole of the shower. The vertebrae of his back are protruding, and there’s silvery marks decorating his hip bones, and Levi can see that his legs are shaking with the effort he’s putting in.

“Eren,” he says quietly, but Eren hears, and whips around to stare at him. He looks like a wild animal who’s been caught, eyes looking too big and shocked for his face, and he looks  _ terrified _ . At least he does until his knees buckle, and he breaks down in sobs, curling up under the hot stream of water from the shower.

“Eren,” says Levi again, shutting the water off and moving in to crouch in front of him. Despite Eren being so much taller than him now, he looks small like this, sobbing into his knees. Levi reaches over, places a hand on his shoulder. “You can’t do this to yourself.”

He wants to vomit as soon as he says the words, because even it’s not something he’s done in a month or two now, it’s still something he does himself, and he knows it’s hypocritical. But he doesn’t, because Eren blows up at them, and that’s enough.

  
“Tell me how the fuck I’m meant to cope with all of this shit then?!” roars Eren, and that’s something Levi can deal with, the emotions and anger and frustration. It’s less complex than dealing with the things that Eren’s doing to vent, less hypocritical than telling him that he needs to stop completely.

“I’m not going to make you stop anything,” says Levi, reaching to lay a hand on Eren’s shoulder, and Eren lets him, which he’s grateful for. “But you can’t do anything to the length where you’re destroying yourself. And that’s what you’re doing right now, that’s how you ended up in medical.”

And Eren sobs, rather than answering, and Levi lets him. He keeps his hand on his shoulder though, thumb reflexively smoothing over his skin (because he’s always been better at expressing things through physicality than through words, that’s why he’s any good as a scout at all despite a lack of training) and he can feel that Eren’s still shaking, with sobs and anxiety and pent up frustration.

Unfortunately for them both, Levi understands that.

“I don’t want to go back,” says Eren quietly, once his sobs have died down a little. “I need to sleep but I can’t sleep, and I’m going to wake everyone up.”

Levi had forgotten that more junior members of his squad still had to share rooms, and a sick feeling tears through him at the thought of having to deal with his own nightmares with an audience.

“Come to my room then,” says Levi, because he’s still an audience he supposes, but he’s currently an audience to a full on breakdown and there’s not really much further to dig. “Nobody cares. They’ll leave you alone there.”

He’s surprised when Eren agrees without a second thought.

Neither of them sleep much.

Levi gets Eren some broth from the cook who’s awaiting the return of another squad anyway, and watches while Eren eats it. It’s slow, and his hand shakes each time he moves the spoon to his mouth, but he eats it. Levi takes the bowl away without a word once he’s done, and manhandles Eren into laying down on one half of the double bed (one of the luxuries of Captain life he doesn’t think he’ll ever be willing to give up).

Eren complies without a word, doesn’t say anything as Levi gets in beside him.

Levi’s good at pretending to be asleep, he’s been doing it in close quarters on expeditions for years. He shuts his eyes and lets his breathing even out and slow, but he doesn’t sleep, as good as his act is. He’s awake when Eren shifts in the bed a little every so often, can almost hear Eren’s head whirring with thoughts, but Eren has eaten, and he’s resting somewhat, so it’s enough.

He’s awake each time Eren shifts uncomfortably, when his breathing picks up with panic, when Eren’s long fingers wrap around his wrist like he’s looking for something to ground him, and he’s awake to see how his breathing seems to settle each time after a minute or so of holding onto him.

Eren eventually falls asleep, still holding onto his wrist, and Levi’s unsure whether he’s finally exhausted himself or whether holding his wrist is just enough of a comfort, but he hopes its the latter.

Levi manages around two hours of sleep before he’s awake again, in time to be ready for another round of training recruits. Eren’s still asleep when he leaves the room, and he gives firm orders for nobody to poke around in there and wake him.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  


“Why do you care?” asks Eren a few days in.

Eren’s just tolerating him, Levi knows that. He’s clearly not fond of the arrangement, not fond of being left alone in the day time and Levi coming back to make him eat and then sleep, but he tolerates it.

“Why wouldn’t I?” asks Levi, watching Eren mess around with his bread before hesitantly taking a bite. He’s not starting to fill out any, and Levi suspects he’s vomiting during the day still, but he’s no longer actively losing weight, and that’s enough for now. 

Eren just sighs, and Levi knows he’s probably bought into the reputation of him being steely and cold, but also knows that Eren also knows that’s not entirely right. He wouldn’t be doing this if he was.

“I don’t get why anyone gives a shit,” admits Eren quietly.

Levi knows better than to say that nobody wants Eren suffering. Knows better than to bring up the ‘Humanity’s Last Hope’ moniker being true, because it’s not about wanting the best for humanity, it’s about wanting the best for  _ Eren _ , and making this about what he is to other people won’t help.

Humanity’s Strongest understands that.

“Why wouldn’t they?” asks Levi simply, because he knows the default is for people to care. That’s why Erwin tried to keep him from self-destructing, why Hange checks in now, why he’s doing this for Eren today.

Eren doesn’t seem to have an answer for that one, and Levi doesn’t press for one. He’s no therapist, he’s just a captain trying his best, but he seems to be doing a damn sight better than medical did nonetheless.

Eren sleeps a little more now. He had a nightmare the second night he stayed with Levi, and he’d been terrified afterwards, but Levi had held him and told him it was fine, and Eren had relaxed into his arms and stopped shaking after half an hour. Having that first nightmare out of the way had seemed to help, because he didn’t have to hide this shit from Levi, he seemed to finally realise that Levi knew already.

  
Eren talks a little as well, and that’s probably the most difficult part of it all for Levi. Watching Eren eat in his private room, and holding him after nightmares, and dragging him for checkups at medical are all easy things.

Listening to Eren talk about how difficult it is that some people  _ really _ don’t see him as human, that even to some of his friends he’s only a titan to be used for them, about how he’s plagued by visions from his titan, about how he wants to feel as empty physically as he does emotionally and how he wants to hurt himself and feel vulnerable and how sometimes he doesn’t feel real are more difficult, because Levi  _ understands _ .

He knows Eren is unfortunately starting to understand. Eren has watched him clean his room from top to bottom after getting back from a mission, has seen him come back with his skin still reddened, has probably smelled vomit on his breath the one time that he’s done that in the week or so since Eren has stayed in his room.

But he and Eren don’t bring it up.

They just have a quiet understanding.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  


A few months later, they’re on a mission outside the walls. It’s Levi’s turn to sleep while Mikasa and Armin keep watch, and he beds down to try and sleep. Nightmares have been less frequent lately, there’s some nights that he does sleep through and he treasures those.

He’s been lay down for 15 minutes when he hears someone get up and move over towards him. He knows it’s Eren, because Eren is probably the only one of his squad with the balls to do this, so he’s not surprised when Eren lays down in front of him, setting his own blankets around himself.

He grabs Levi’s wrist lightly, and Levi instantly understands.

  
Eren’s improved, he’s well enough to function again. He’s been signed off by medical, and Levi approves the order of St John’s Wort each month without question. He’s back on full duty, and Levi knows that those unhealthy coping mechanisms aren’t entirely trained out of him, but they’re less frequent, his eye bags aren’t quite as dark and his body is back to a normal weight, even if sometimes Eren has to come to him and ask him to watch him eat and sleep in his bed to achieve those things. Levi’s happy to help with that.

They’ve had a recruit be eaten by a titan - it’s a rare enough occurrence now that they’re no longer used to it, and Levi saw Eren sneak off after his dinner following being quiet in the aftermath.

So Levi nods, and moves his arm so that Eren can hold his wrist and cradle it against his chest until he feels grounded once again.

Because Levi understands. 

**Author's Note:**

> i'm over on tumblr @yaegerists if you want to come say hi! :)


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